


The "Moron" in "Moroni"

by TerribleAndSadThings



Series: Godsend [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Feelings, Guilt, M/M, Mormonism, POV Multiple, Theology, Vulpes deserves everything he gets and worse, he has very evil karma, honestly people, platonic courier/arcade, platonic courier/ulysses, post honest hearts, post lonesome road, the courier is a idiot, there is some sexual touching involved, ulysses is so extra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-10 12:44:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerribleAndSadThings/pseuds/TerribleAndSadThings
Summary: “Men like Graham do not change, Courier. His loyalty was never to Caesar, but to the war Caesar provided him. His religion is not that of New Canaanites, but that of battle. His god is not of kindness or mercy, but of slaughter.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Courier is an idiot. Please accept him. He is trying. 2. Arcade adopted a Courier-shaped child. He just hasn't reconciled it with himself yet. 3. Forgive me if I butchered Ulysses. If I ever fell in love with a video game character it's Ulysses. Even if he's a drama queen. I tried to make all three voices distinct, so Ulysses does ramble a bit. He's Ulysses. 4. Reminder: Dialogue with Jonathan Nash indicates Ulysses knows the Courier's name. 5. Disclaimer: Loose interpretation of theological texts to suit author's purposes.

After talking with Ranger Andy about treatment options, Arcade returned to the Courier's Novac motel room. The people of Novac weren’t a bad sort, much better than one would have assumed only knowing Boone. The “doctor” on the outskirts was a bit sketchy, but aside from her, they weren’t too bad. Even No-bark Noonan had some charm to him if Arcade squinted and was standing far enough away he couldn’t smell him.

Of course, seeing Daisy again and the rather impressive stock of liquor in the Courier’s room didn’t fully distract Arcade from his concerns over the Courier’s whereabouts.

Less than twenty four hours ago, the Courier told him to "take a load off!" and "have a vacation!" While that immediately qualified as suspicious, the even more suspicious eight hundred caps the Courier dumped in his lap might have deterred what should have been pressing questions. Arcade eased his conscience by telling himself the Courier was probably an adult and Arcade wasn't his babysitter. Arcade also assured himself this was absolutely true even though he knew when it came to it, yeah, Arcade was the Courier's babysitter.

Opening the door with the key the Courier happily handed off, Arcade found the Courier looking no worse for the wear, sitting cross-legged on the bed and chewing on his nails. At Arcade's appearance, he snatched his hand from his mouth, hiding it behind his back as if Arcade wouldn't see. Although Arcade knew better, he couldn't help but be fond of the Courier. The kid took everything he said seriously, even scolding him for biting his nails, as if Arcade was the smartest person in the Mojave.

When the Courier turned his head to look anywhere but at Arcade, the fondness dissipated to make room for the resurgence of suspicion that never quite died. Considering the levels of shame the Courier now displayed, Arcade braced for the worst. After all, he looked less guilty after "accidentally" arming and firing ARCHIMEDES.

"What did you do?"

A flash of emotions flew across the Courier's face. Surprise to relief to anxiety and then resignation, all obvious, all so readable, Arcade had to wonder how he ever got away with lying about anything. Bowing his head, the Courier sighed.

"Courier," Arcade warned.

Immediately the Courier burst, stumbling over his words in a rush to get them out and gesticulating wildly. "Remember that time you told me not to do that thing, but I told you I was going to do it anyway and you don't know it yet, but I totally did do it?"

Arcade stared for a moment, looked down at his hands, looked back up at the Courier who watched him with big pleading eyes, and then sighed. "You're going to have to be more specific. I remember a lot of those times."

The Courier made a displeased face, but didn't argue. If anything that concerned Arcade more. The Courier always argued. 

"That time you told me I can't just go around locking people in trunks."

"...who exactly did you lock in a trunk?"

"Maybe possibly definitely the person you told me not to."

"Are you telling me you locked Vulpes Inculta, leader of the Frumentarii, one of Caesar's most trusted men, and mass murderer in a trunk?"

The Courier seemed to lean further away, despite Arcade still standing at the door and having no real ability to harm him. Hunching his shoulders to appear smaller, the Courier looked at the floor somewhere to the right of Arcade. "I guess."

"You guess. What do you mean you guess?"

Sighing heavily, the Courier rolled his eyes and then flopped back on the bed. "I dunno. One moment I saw him on the Strip and the next moment I was stuffing him in a trunk. It just all happened so fast."

Arcade stood there, as bewildered as ever by the Courier, unable to decide where to begin dissecting the Courier's answer. Rubbing his forehead, Arcade started at perhaps the most irrelevant point. "Where did you even get a trunk?"

"Arcade, that's not even important," the Courier sighed heavily. He sat up so Arcade could see him roll his eyes, as if Arcade's inability to understand what drove the Courier to do anything was more exasperating than the Courier doing literally _anything_

Not sure what else to do, and knowing he would have to deal with this before Vulpes got out and dealt with them, Arcade locked the door behind him and dropped to the couch. He fixed the Courier with a hard look. The Courier met it with a stubborn glare of his own.

“Where is the trunk now?” Arcade sincerely hoped Vulpes was still in the trunk. Maybe if Arcade was lucky Vulpes suffocated. Mostly, Arcade wondered how _the fuck_ Vulpes survived after his last encounter with the Courier.

The Courier scowled. “That’s not important either.”

Recognizing the futility of getting answers from the Courier when he didn’t want to give them, Arcade sighed and gave in. “So what is important?”

The Courier perked up, eyes bright as if Arcade asking the question meant Arcade approved. “Do you think if I give Vulpes to Ulysses it’ll cheer him up?”

For a second, Arcade’s mind blanked, stuck attempting to process the question using only what he knew from the Courier’s unending stream of hero worship for Ulysses.

At Arcade’s silence, the Courier rushed to explain himself. “Okay, I know--”

Arcade held his hand up, cutting the Courier off. He snapped his mouth shut and returned to pouting, but in silence. After about thirty seconds of only the hum of the lightbulb and muffled voices from outside, Arcade sighed. The Courier immediately straightened up, watching Arcade with eyes full of expectation.

“So let me make sure I have this right,”

The Courier nodded.

“Vulpes, the man you shot, I believe a total of five times, and we both believed to be dead, was walking down the strip, and you managed to sneak up on him and stuff him in a trunk?”

“No.” The Courier screwed up his face in consideration and then shrugged. “He was more limping. And trying to sneak up on me. But yeah.” He nodded again, pleased Arcade had caught on.

“And you want to present him to Ulysses, the madman who tried to kill you and then gave you nuclear missiles, as some sort of offering?”

“Yeah, to cheer him up. He’s always so sad.” Then the Courier frowned. “He’s not a madman. He’s really smart.”

Arcade opened his mouth to argue, explain that a person could be both intelligent and have deep seated psychological problems, but knew the point would be lost on the Courier. Besides, Arcade needed to address much more pressing issues with the Courier’s plan.

“And lots of people try to kill me Arcade. Joshua tried to kill me too.”

“ _What?_ ” Arcade lurched upright in his seat. For as many times as Arcade reminded himself he was not the Courier’s keeper, not his babysitter, not really responsible for the Courier at all, for a moment Arcade felt intensely parental. “You said he’s your friend!” Internally, Arcade winced at the volume of his voice, but continued yelling, “‘He’s not so bad, Arcade. He’s changed, Arcade. We’re buddies, Arcade.’”

“We _are_ buddies, Arcade,” the Courier insisted, tapping his fingertips to his chest, over his heart for emphasis, only earnesty on his face.

“What’s a little attempted murder between friends, right?” Arcade forced an extremely sarcastic laugh.

The Courier beamed. “Exactly!”

Letting out a slow breath, Arcade kept his tone calm and even. “Courier, friends don’t try to kill each other.”

“But you just said--”

“I was being facetious.”

The Courier balled up his hands into fists and scowled. “How am I supposed to know you’re being face-y-ish? I don’t even know what that means.”

“Sarcasm, like when you’re being sarcastic. I was joking,” Arcade explained as quick as he could before the Courier sidetracked them further. “Look, neither Ulysses nor Joshua--”

“I’m never sarcastic,” the Courier scoffed.

If the Courier was testing his sarcasm, Arcade ignored it. “I don’t know enough about this ‘Ulysses’ to say, but I wouldn’t trust someone who would be happy to receive a trunk with a person in it. Who I do know about is Joshua Graham. Joshua is not your friend. People like Joshua don’t change. Instead of slaughtering people under Caesar, he’s slaughtering people with the excuse of religion. He is not your friend. He’s using you.”

The Courier’s lips parted and he drew a sharp breath, but he did not speak. He just stared at Arcade with wide eyes.

Arcade swallowed. Since the moment the Courier told him about Joshua Graham, the Burned Man, Malpais Legate, something much more extreme than trepidation seized him. Something like pure unceasing horror. Arcade would have dashed the Courier’s hopes then, but the kid had been so excited to share his adventure with him, and Arcade didn’t have it in him to start the fight. It might have had something to do with the fact, they were knee deep in irradiated water, surrounded by feral ghouls, and in a vault. After, Arcade rationalized it to himself, that if it really was a problem, something would have happened by then.

Arcade hadn’t meant to start in on the Courier’s fixation with Joshua, right then, in the Dino Dee-lite motel with Vulpes hidden away in a trunk somewhere. It wasn’t as if Joshua Graham was returning to New Vegas and it wasn’t as if he had nuclear weapons to give the Courier, but when it came down to it, Arcade could admit to himself it wasn’t about if the Courier hurt anyone because Graham wanted him to. Arcade could admit it was about the Courier getting himself hurt because Graham wanted him to.

Whether it was the right time or not, Arcade knew he would have had to say it at some point, knew as long as he remained quiet the Courier would take it as approval. The Courier wouldn’t think twice.

So despite the look on the Courier’s face, more shocked than if Arcade shot him, Arcade lowered his voice and continued. “People like Joshua Graham don’t have friends. They have allies and they have enemies, and just because you fall in one category doesn’t mean you can’t be in the other too.”

The Courier didn’t answer. He continued to stare at Arcade, confusion filling those innocent eyes. Slowly, he tilted his head to the side and studied Arcade, brow furrowing in concentration. Arcade clenched his jaw and met the Courier’s eyes, needing to impress upon him the gravity of his words, his warning.

The Courier swiped his tongue over his bottom lip and after a long moment, spoke. “Fuck you, Arcade.”

“Courier--”

“No, fuck you, Arcade. I don’t care.” The easy looseness that normally hung on the Courier evaporated, leaving a vibrating tension, a precursor to anger.

Maybe before it would have intimidated Arcade, but it had been some time since Arcade could delude himself into thinking of the Courier as a rabid dog rather than a stray one. “Did you not listen at all?”

“I said ‘I don’t care,’” the Courier shouted, shoving himself to a stand on the bed. 

Arcade shot up as well and stalked over to the bed to glare up at the Courier, taller than Arcade for the first time. “What do you mean you don’t care? He’s going to use you and once your usefulness is up, he’s going to kill you.”

“Fuck you. He’s not like that,” the Courier shouted, shuffling to the edge of the bed to loom over Arcade.

“Yes he--”

“I don’t care!” the Courier nearly screamed it in Arcade’s face before his voice broke and he struggled to maintain the volume of before. “I don’t care if Joshua is using me. I don’t care! I don’t care!” 

“What?” In comparison to the levels of noise the Courier reached, Arcade could have been whispering, his baffled question lost under the turbulent emotions of the Courier.

The hit from the Courier came too fast for Arcade to follow, but landed unexpectedly gentle for someone who punched a deathclaw to death. Still, the force of it caused Arcade to stumble back, pain from the blow radiating over his chest. The Courier launched himself after Arcade, sending them both crashing into the couch. 

Before Arcade could even begin to reorient, the Courier rolled away, bouncing back to his feet in front of the door. 

“Fuck you, Arcade,” he repeated much softer, voice wavering.

“Yeah, well, fuck you too, you little bastard,” Arcade barely managed to heave out, struggling to catch his breath after the Courier knocked it from him. “Got get yourself killed. See if I care.”

“Maybe I will!”

“Good, do it!”

“I will!”

“Fine.”

“Fine!” The Courier slammed the door hard enough to rattle the walls.

Sprawled out on the stained couch, Arcade stared up at the dingy ceiling of the Courier’s motel room and groaned. This is why Arcade never wanted kids.

=

It felt like decades, centuries, since the decimation of Hopeville, since Courier Six brought about the death of hundreds without thought and without flinching. In the Divide, the ruins of what could have been, Ulysses had stood, watching, waiting. The Divide seemed to exist outside of time, as if it had been all spent, nothing left to allow change, a hole in reality, the end of forever.

Before, Ulysses had admired the Courier in a distant way, the pure joy of him, the wide eyed eagerness as he faced a world dead set on crushing him. He never avoided a fight, but neither did he start them, ready to trust anyone, ready to throw himself into any cause at any second. The occupation of courier for the Mojave Express suited him, better than it suited Ulysses. 

Long ago Ulysses lost his sense of wonder, his naivety as gone as his tribe, as lost to him as history the Legion eradicated wherever it spread. Courier Six explored the Mojave, raced through life bearing the hopes and worries of those who couldn't. Ulysses held a small affection for him, someone who had no past to hold him back, no guilt weighing on his soul.

Of course, Ulysses learned the Courier had not been as he seemed. Ulysses learned how wrong he had been, how he hadn't been as jaded as he thought. For all he had done, none of it could compare to the destruction the Courier wrought. The Courier showed himself to be both less and so much more than Ulysses ever expected. What Ulysses had thought to be innocence had been indifference. The Courier saw all the sins, all the evil and cruelty around him, he simply did not care. What Ulysses had thought to be credulity was an insane arrogance, a belief that he could kill any who thought to cross him.

When the Courier delivered the eyebot to Hopeville, the signal activating what the old world left buried, Ulysses realized the Courier never considered the packages he carried to be responsibilities. The Mojave Express was not a job, but a purpose. What the Courier carried were not burdens to him, but challenges. What Ulysses thought to be wonder in the Courier's eyes had been hunger.

What the Courier carried did not matter to him. Nothing mattered to him, not the consequences of his actions or their effects upon others. For years, guilt and self loathing festered in Ulysses's soul, like an infection in a wound he inflicted upon himself. Seeing the Courier carry on as before, as if he had no hand in the annihilation of something good, as if he forgot Hopeville existed at all, broke Ulysses open.

All the disgust and hate he had within him poured out, finding a new focus. The Courier was not purity in a shattered corrupt world. The Courier was the product of the corruption, of irresponsible insouciance to the world around them. The Courier embodied the savagery a fledgling civilization struggled to temper. 

Countless times Ulysses contemplated killing the Courier, ending the blood soaked path he paved with chaos and self interest, but he hesitated. Because to kill the Courier, so oblivious to the destruction he laid, so callous to the suffering of the world around him, uninhabited by empathy, untouched by sorrow, was not enough. If Ulysses killed him, it would only be when the Courier faced the consequences of his actions, only when he understood what he had done, died with the knowledge of why. Only when the Courier suffered as Ulysses had would Ulysses allow him to die.

After Benny shot the Courier in the head, Ulysses thought it finally ended. The surge of regret within him startled him nearly as much as his surprise the Courier could die. A person, a concept, that held such a massive presence within Ulysses’s head, vanished in the night, left in an unmarked grave.

Some part of Ulysses had been convinced he could let go of his rage, as if the screaming demand for retribution inside of him would be silenced once the Courier's existence was erased. What ate him up left a hollowness in him that might have caused a collapse. Except, it wasn't the end of the Courier at all. Shot in the head, buried alive, Benny did not kill Courier Six. Benny brought to life something much worse. Benny gave the Courier purpose. First vengeance, and then ambition.

Tracking the Courier through the Mojave, Ulysses watched as he dismantled the institutions that warred for control, tearing them down to make room for himself. The impact of his actions rocked New Vegas to its core, changed the lives of hundreds, thousands, changed the people that made the place what it was. More than the occupation of a courier, maestro of chaos suited Courier Six.

Then, Ulysses knew what he had to do. Ulysses knew he would be the one to bring reckoning upon the Courier.

It felt like decades, _centuries_ , since the Courier returned to the place where it began, arriving with more fury than the winds of the Divide and a laugh with more happiness than Hopeville heard since the day it ended. Once more, the Courier humbled Ulysses. Once more, the Courier was both less and so much more than Ulysses ever anticipated. Now, when Ulysses saw the Courier, the constant tumultuous wrath that plagued his soul would quiet.

Now, when he would look at the Courier, Ulysses no longer saw an agent of chaos without a conscious, but a creature without direction and in search of a home. Ulysses had not been wrong, the Courier was without the cares or concerns that haunted Ulysses, but it was not because of hardness or cruelty. Ulysses had not been wrong, the Courier was innocent, but not because the Courier did not commit unforgivable acts.

The Courier simply was. He did as he felt, unthinking, and unhindered, without mind to know better.

Now, Ulysses found the Courier waiting for him, as he once waited for the Courier. At his approach, the Courier jerked his head up, lip chewed raw, leg jiggling with nerves, and wide, pleading eyes filled with trust. Ulysses felt the resignation within him rather than chose it.

"Courier."

"Ulysses, I think I fucked up," the Courier said, slight whine at the end, tipping his head back to look up from where he sat, cross legged on a beat up trunk. "Arcade is really mad at me."

Ulysses remained silent, sizing the Courier up. Although he looked no more worn than usual, he lacked his normally bright demeanor, his easy smile giving way to sulking. It occurred to Ulysses the Courier must have dragged the trunk all the way from New Vegas, the embossed and painted stamp of the Lucky 38 peeling.

After a moment, Ulysses asked, "What's in the trunk, Courier?"

The Courier's eyes widened as if surprised Ulysses noticed it. He looked down with the same stupid look on his face, like he forgot it was under him, before shooting his eyes back to Ulysses. "Arcade is really mad at me," he repeated and then glanced to the side, out into the ruins of Hopeville before sighing heavily. "I might have possibly accidentally locked a person in a trunk after Arcade told me not to."

"Would that be the trunk?"

The Courier hunched his shoulders further and looked anywhere, but Ulysses. "Yeah."

"Courier,"

Hesitantly, the Courier lifted his eyes to meet Ulysses's.

"Who did you lock in the trunk?"

"Um, don't be mad."

Instantly, adrenaline shot through Ulysses. The Courier's ability to recognize human emotions and anticipate reactions was limited to only the most extreme.

Voice unintentionally hard, Ulysses asked again, "Courier, who is in the trunk?"

"Don't be mad," he pleaded, eyes flickering with uncertainty, "I got him for you. Don't be mad.”

“Who, Courier?”

Looking rather lost, the Courier dropped his head and sighed softly. Reluctantly, he slid off the trunk to a stand. After one last glance over his shoulder at Ulysses, the Courier unlocked the trunk, opened it, and then shuffled aside.

Ulysses stepped forward to look inside. Once he saw who the Courier had brought for him, reality seemed to shift, split in two, his soul splintering from his body. His body stood over the trunk, staring down at a barely conscious Vulpes Inculta, covered in his own piss, crippled and beaten, windpipe cut so he could not speak. But alive. 

Not a monster. Not a shadow. Not untouchable. Vulpes Inculta bled red as any human. Fragile as any animal.

Ulysses’s body stood there, listening to the Courier’s tentative explanation.

“I don’t know. He kept trying to kill me, and I thought it was kind of funny, but Arcade didn’t think it was funny. And I guess I didn’t hit him hard enough the first time or shoot him enough the second time. So, I figured maybe I’m not supposed to kill him. And I kind of wondered who else was supposed to kill him if I didn’t and…” Hands stuffed in his jacket’s pockets, the Courier shrugged and looked away. “When someone hurts me, it feels better when I kill them so, you know. I thought you might want to kill him.”

Ulysses’s soul hung above them, above the moment, seeing in perfect clarity the choice that lay before him. He wanted to hate the Courier, for bringing his past to him once more. Hate the Courier for presenting him with this dilemma. But it wasn’t the Courier’s fault. As always, the Courier was simply the messenger. The Courier delivered what must arrive. Ulysses had brought this unto himself, first by his loyalty to Caesar and then by his disloyalty. 

Yet,

“Why?”

The single word from Ulysses seemed to startle the Courier, eyes jerking to Ulysses. He blinked and then glanced away only to look right back to Ulysses, brow furrowed. “I just told you. So you’d feel better.”

“This.” At another time in his life, so long ago, another person ago, Ulysses might have laughed. “Did you think this would make me ‘feel better’? To kill a human barely clinging to life? To kill someone who only obeyed the commands of the same master?”

The Courier did not answer him. Ulysses hadn’t expected him to. The Courier stood there, eyes filled with reproach as he watched Ulysses.

“You bring him here, this-- this creature to me, still breathing, but not alive. Did you think it would please me? You would have done better to press your knife further, to cut his throat through.” 

The Courier still did not reply. Ulysses knew it was because he had no answers. The Courier did not think, not as Ulysses did. The Courier acted. Ulysses’s soul observed as his body moved. He turned to the Courier, advanced the few steps between them so he towered over him. 

The Courier, someone who had not flinched looking out onto the Divide, who greeted the Marked Men with a gun and a smile, who thought the road Ulysses set him on to be fun rather than a trial, a man convinced of his own immortality, shrank back.

Ulysses tone grew from harsh to vicious as he bore down on the Courier. “Do you think I would take joy in executing this pathetic wretch?” he growled, hand closing around the Courier’s bicep. “His part in the assimilation of--” Even now, a different time, the end of time, something within Ulysses’s chest constricted as he spoke of what once was. “of the Twisted Hairs was done under Caesar. I accepted Caesar’s rule and bringing him here, to me at his lowest, do you think this would please me? Did you think it would right the past? What meaning is there in this, Courier? What would it achieve?”

The Courier did not wince when Ulysses tightened his grip, when Ulysses shook him, didn’t attempt to pull free. Rather, calm fell over the Courier, the only movement to give him away the darting of his eyes and quick dab of his tongue on his lip. 

Unhanding the Courier, Ulysses shot back before the sound of switchblade’s release reached his ears, but the Courier moved just as quick, the arc of his swing swiping the tip of the blade against Ulysses’s adam’s apple. So precise, so deliberately done, the cut did not bleed, only the shallowest, finest of slices. 

Although still nauseous with anger, Ulysses remained away from the Courier, hands open and palms turn outwards. Ulysses recognized the warning, a courtesy the Courier rarely gave. Even with confidence in his abilities to subdue or kill the Courier, Ulysses had initiated contact and he could respect the Courier’s reaction. By the Courier’s standards, it was an underreaction.

The Courier pointed the switchblade at Ulysses, eyes unfamiliar for the coldness within them. “Fuck. You.”

Without waiting for a response, the Courier lowered himself to a crouch beside the trunk. He drove the switchblade down, dragged it across, and tore up. The series of the motions took seconds, done quick and clinical, but the sound of flesh being rend and blood splattered sounded in Ulysses’s ears louder the howling winds of the Divide.

With a noise of disgust and then a sigh, the Courier stood. He wiped the switchblade on his shirt as he glared down at Vulpes corpse. Once clean enough, the Courier flipped it closed. Only then did he look back to Ulysses.

“Fuck you,” he repeated. He slammed the trunk shut, unnecessarily forceful, leaving a bloody handprint behind. His voice grew louder. “Fuck you.” Leaning forward, he began pushing the trunk towards the edge of ridge only a few feet off. “I try to do one nice thing and this is what I get.”

“Courier.”

“I said ‘fuck you.’”

With one last shove, the trunk containing the fresh corpse of Vulpes Inculta tumbled over the cliffside. The sounds of it smashing off of the jutting rocks on the way down were strangely satisfying.

On the edge, facing the Divide, the Courier stood. Arms spread wide, the Courier tipped his head back to look up at the sky as he shouted “Fuck you!”

Weariness seeped into Ulysses. Same as before, as always, Ulysses saw significance, meaning, where there was none. The Courier’s actions were not so complex, not symbolic of the past chaining Ulysses or the history he shouldered. What the head of the Frumentarii represented to Ulysses meant nothing to the Courier. In the eyes of the Courier, what tormented Ulysses could be solved the same as the Courier solved all his problems. With a bullet, a blade, a death, a victory. To bring Vulpes to Ulysses was the same as if a dog retrieved game for its master. To please.

The choice the Courier had presented to Ulysses was not test or reminder, not punishment or mockery. The Courier thought it a gift.

Running a hand over his face, Ulysses sighed. “Courier.”

The Courier shot a glare over his shoulder at Ulysses before looking back to the decimation he unwittingly created. Even now, after all that had been said, all Ulysses showed him, Ulysses wondered if the Courier understood his part in what occurred. If the Courier understood the weight of the calamity he brought into the world.

The Courier whirled around to face Ulysses. “Nothing I do makes you happy. I’m always wrong. Always, always, always.” With a growl of frustration, the Courier shoved his hands in his hair and messed it. Snapping his eyes to Ulysses, he dropped his hands. “Joshua would have liked it. Joshua likes it when I win fights. He likes it when I kill our enemies. He would’ve told me good job.”

In the tens of times the Courier had returned to the Divide to visit Ulysses, always happy to see Ulysses, to ask his opinion, to tell him stories, the Courier spoke of Joshua Graham, the man Ulysses knew as Malpais Legate. Ulysses hadn’t been surprised to learn the Legate survived. He hadn’t been surprised by the Courier’s fascination with him. The extermination of the White Legs by Graham with the Courier’s assistance felt as inevitable as every action the Courier committed.

Almost poetic.

More artificial significance manufactured by Ulysses’s search for reason. Strange how it always fell to the Courier.

“Graham is brutal and inhumane, Courier. Barely a person. Should the day come he and I are similiar, I hope it’s the day you finally put a bullet in my head.”

The Courier scowled. “He’s not like that anymore. He hates Caesar. I would have killed him if he didn’t.”

“Men like Graham do not change, Courier. His loyalty was never to Caesar, but to the war Caesar provided him. His religion is not that of New Canaanites, but that of battle. His god is not of kindness or mercy, but of slaughter.”

“I don’t care. That doesn’t matter. Why’s that matter? I kill people all the time. You kill people all the time. Okay, Arcade doesn’t kill people that much. Usually, he saves people, but he still likes me!” The Courier dropped his eyes to the ground. “Or he used to,” he muttered. He jerked his head up to glare at Ulysses once more. “It doesn’t matter.”

“This victory will never be enough. Peace is not enough for a man like Graham. He does not war to survive, no matter what he claims. There will be another war to wage. If it does not come to him, he will create it.”

“Who cares!” The Courier threw his hands in the air. “Everyone needs a hobby!”

“Your trust is misplaced, Courier. Graham’s predilection is not for you, but to your devotion and your aptitude for violence. Once one of those falters, he will forsake you.”

“I don’t even know what any of that means!”

“Courier,”

“And I don’t care!”

“Moroni,” Ulysses snapped, voice booming.

Vibrating with tension, hands tight in fists at his sides, the Courier shouted with such force his body moved with the words. “Shut up! Don’t say my name and don’t tell me about Joshua! I delivered a package here and you hate me. Fuckhead kills your family and he gets a pass. You don’t make sense! Nothing you say makes sense!”

Ulysses fell silent. 

Breathing quick and heavy, eyes flashing, the Courier stood before Ulysses, a snarl on his lips. “Fuck you. I’m leaving.” 

The Courier turned on the heel of his worn boots, kicking dirt and rocks over the ridge he walked along. Jamming his hands in his pockets, the Courier ducked his head and hunched his narrow shoulders.

“Does Graham speak your name? Does he know your history?”

Men like Graham did not change, no matter if they found religion. If he truly wanted a god, Ulysses would give him the Courier.

The Courier flipped him off without looking back.

=

Sometimes, on the nights too hot and humid for his scarring skin to do anything, but itch, when he would lie awake in tearing pain, Joshua would think of the Courier.

First he would think on the last time they spoke, the last Joshua saw him. The memory sickened Joshua. He was ashamed of it, ashamed of how he let his rage blind him. Ashamed of how ready he had been to condemn him. How readily he persecuted the Courier.

That was why Joshua began there. That was why Joshua forced himself to think on it. He could not allow himself to forget why the Courier was gone. Joshua could not allow himself to forget that he was the one that told the Courier to leave, to never return. He repaid his debt to the Courier, repaid the Courier’s devotion and courage with unjust accusations and hostility. 

Joshua began there to remind himself what had been would not be again.

Lying on his bedroll, Joshua would listen to the soft flow of water and chirps of crickets. He would look up into the darkness of the cavern or light of the stars, it didn’t matter which, because in his mind he would see the Courier.

Joshua remembered the excitement in the Courier’s eyes when given the chance to fight Salt-Upon-Wounds. He set aside his guns, and slid on spiked knuckles, called it a fair fight. He laughed when Salt-Upon-Wounds swung out. Laughed as he ran circles around the panicked chief of the White-Legs, laughed when he struck, again and again. There was a savage beauty to the Courier, one barely contained by his body, a spark of divinity.

The Courier belonged in motion, yet he had been so still under Joshua. There had been no fear in his innocent eyes when Joshua pressed his gun to the Courier’s forehead, only pure love. Something Joshua never could have anticipated would be directed at him.

Some nights, when the air was right, when the changing of his bandages felt a little less like fire and a little more like healing, Joshua would think of the Courier in another way. He would think about the Courier under him, but not as a memory. He would think of the Courier as he hadn’t thought of another since his life before. In the Legion, Joshua had not been chaste. 

Perhaps Joshua should have been ashamed on those nights too, but he was a weak man. He learned as much long ago. After he banished the Courier, Joshua found the photographs. The unintentional irony of the Courier leaving them in his Scripture was not lost on Joshua. He opened to find five, beginning with the monsters the Courier slayed. The flicker of affection in Joshua’s chest had not been foreign, nor the pang of loss, both for the Courier.

The last two photos, those had been a test of Joshua’s will. He stood there for a long time, frozen, staring down at the Courier’s naked form and wide smile, no hint of shyness. Joshua was a weak man. Christ have mercy on his wretched soul.

On those nights, newly healed skin would stretch. On those nights, Joshua would thank the Lord that even if the Courier was gone because of Joshua’s wicked nature, that he was out of Joshua’s reach. Joshua was a weak man.

It was on one of those nights the Courier returned.

Joshua knew the Courier had not heeded his warning, not entirely. Daniel informed him of the Courier's presence in Zion, even if he hid himself from Joshua.

“He's been hanging around the Narrows, moping,” Daniel said in an off hand way as washed rags in a shallow pool downstream. “He says he misses you, though I can't imagine why.”

“Neither can I,” murmured Joshua, more to himself than Daniel.

Daniel threw down the rag he wrung out and fixed Joshua with a hard stare. “He's a killer, Joshua, but not a cruel man. Whatever you did he forgave you. ‘This is why I tell you that her many sins have been forgiven; so she has shown great love. The one who is forgiven little loves little.’ Luke 7:46.”

“Do not presume to lecture me on my affairs, Daniel. You know not what you encourage.”

Sighing, Daniel looked away and shook his head. “You’re a stubborn man, Joshua Graham.”

The next sign of the Courier’s return was as unsubtle as Joshua would expect of the Courier. When Joshua returned to the Dead Horses’ camp, he found them unsettled. A body had been discovered. No, three bodies. They lie lined up on a the shore, arms crossed over their chests and eyes closed. The Dead Horse’s did not know what to make of them, the posing of the bodies not disguising the brutal violence that brought their end. Joshua felt faint approval for their relaxive doubling of guard, should it be a threat.

Joshua, however, knew what the corpses truly meant. Despite their wastelander dress, Joshua recognized them as green agents of the Frumentarii, as if the stench of Vulpes Inculta had yet to fade from them. As certain in his conviction he served the Lord’s will, Joshua knew what the corpses meant. The Courier left them as an offering, as an apology, as a plea.

“Burn them,” he said, before he left the Dead Horses for Angel’s Cave.

On his bedroll, Joshua lie, hands folded over his chest, eyes unfocused on the darkness above him. Unavoidably, thoughts of the Courier’s possessed him. The Courier was a godsend, an angel of war and wrath that assured their victory, mortal but untouchable, a gift and a test of Joshua’s restraint.

It was a night of air cool enough, a night when what remained of his skin and what regrew felt as one, itched more than seared. It was a night where Joshua felt the pull in his gut, imagined the intensity in which the Courier went about his task, the earnest determination in him to please Joshua. It was one of the many nights that taught Joshua no matter how pious he sought to be, he was a weak man. As flawed as all humans, low in the eyes of the Lord.

After so many nights such as this, the scarred skin of his groin no longer hurt when he grew hard. On nights like this, Joshua allowed his mind to dwell on thoughts of the Courier, to draw up the memory of that photograph tucked in the back pages of his Scripture. Unapologetic sacrilege. He did not touch himself, knowing it would never be enough.

So distracted, Joshua did not hear the grind of dirt under boots until the Courier was close enough to see in the darkness of the cave. As always, the Courier moved as quietly as a cat, an unexpected talent considering how loud his mouth was.

The Courier did not meet his eyes when he kneeled beside Joshua. He dropped his chin to avoid catching his gaze as he lowered himself to Joshua’s side. Joshua did not move, allowing the Courier to slide himself under his arm, to tuck his body against Joshua’s. The Courier hid his face in the curve of Joshua’s throat. Only when he stilled, pressing himself against Joshua’s side did he feel the Courier’s trembling. Only then did Joshua hear the Courier’s shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry,” the Courier whispered, barely audible despite being so close.

A sick anger, an unfamiliar guilt flooded Joshua’s veins. He did not answer, could not answer.

“I didn’t-- I don’t-- I’m sorry,” he settled on, the tiny whine, the whimper at the end of his words tearing into Joshua’s heart.

It was appalling how intensely visceral his reaction to the Courier was. The creature, a master of violence yet pure in heart, affected Joshua, moved him as no other before. Joshua did not answer him, for what could be said that would be enough? His feeble justification, his inadequate apology, would never amount to the fragilest of gestures the Courier showed him now, open and vulnerable. The longer his silence continued, the more the Courier trembled.

The Courier nudged the underside of his jaw, a silent plea for affection. Joshua could not deny him. His arm tightened around the Courier, pulling him closer, holding him tight. The Courier drew a ragged breath. The warmth of the Courier against him both stung and satisfied. For the ache of his own arousal, he almost missed the feel of the Courier’s cock against his thigh, but not for the soft pant of the Courier against his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he whined, “I just want you so much. You can kill me. I just-- I can’t, Joshua.”

“Courier.” Joshua hadn’t intended for the word to be so curt, to speak so roughly.

At the sound of his voice, the Courier whimpered and his hips twitched against Joshua’s thigh. Joshua’s throat constricted, leaving his mouth empty of anything else.

“Moroni.” The word, the name, so familiar to Joshua, tumbled from the Courier’s lips as if in hurry, as if the Courier was desperate to get it out. “I’m from New York and my name is Moroni. It’s a stupid name, but it’s my name.”

Joshua closed his eyes.

No doubt the Courier had been a gift from the Lord, and now a test, the Angel Moroni incarnated in his bed.

From Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: _There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it._

Nuzzling against his throat, the Courier slid his hand under Joshua’s vest and across his abdomen to twist his fingers in his shirt. Clinging to Joshua, the Courier rocked his hips against him and moaned.

Joshua was a weak man.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I can only write about Joshua's dick when stoned. here u go

Before he gave thought about it, about how the Courier might not trust him after their previous confrontation, Joshua shoved the Courier from him and onto his back. Placing himself above the Courier before he could react, Joshua held himself over the him, hands on he either side of his head. He slid his knee between the Courier’s legs and looked to the his face. Only Joshua found his expression filled with near panic and what might have been awe.

The Courier didn’t say anything. Hebarely breathed. Joshua lowered his head to return the Courier’s gesture, nosing along his throat. Never had Joshua despised the bandages covering his mouth more than at that moment. 

Immediately, the Courier reacted, shoved his hips from the ground to press against Joshua and hands snagging onto Joshua’s vest. At contact the Courier drew a sharp breath. When Joshua lowered his weight onto him, the Courier groaned.

Breathing quick, the Courier closed his eyes and stilled under him. Joshua froze.

“Joshua,” he muttered, as if having to reassuring himself of who Josua was. 

“Courier.” This time Joshua said the word carefully.

The Courier’s eyes flew open and a slow smirk grew on his face. “Wanna fuck?”

Joshua was only human.

He pushed aside the Courier’s jack to drag his shirt up his chest. Joshua glided his hand over the Courier’s side, beginning at his hip and up to the scar on his ribs that run up under his armpit. Cupping the Courier’s rib cage, he swept his thumb along the thick bump, feeling the heat of the Courier even if he could not feel his skin. The Courier shivered under his attention. His hands moved to the top of Joshua’s tactical vest, finding the zipper and yanking it down to open. 

One hand shot to Joshua’s shirt, but Joshua grabbed his other wrist slamming his hand to the ground. The Courier stilled before jerking his eyes up to meet Joshua’s. He looked at him with suspicion. 

Joshua squeezed his wrist tighter. “You do not pull on my bandages.”

The Courier stared. He blinked once.

“You do not remove or damage them in any way.”

The Courier screwed up his face and began to squirm.

“That means you do not bite.”

The Courier immediately began struggling to free his wrist from Joshua’s grasp and tugging at his shirt with his other hand. “Joshua,” he whined. “That’s unfair. I just-- I just wanna--”

“No biting,” Joshua commanded, voice filled with threat.

The Courier made a hiss of frustration before forcing himself upwards and putting his teeth to Joshua’s throat. Joshua had him by the hair before he could feel more than the slightest pressure. He dragged the Courier’s head back and then placed his hand over the Courier’s throat and under his jaw.

“If you cannot restrain yourself, I will for you,” Joshua warned, forcing the Courier’s chin back. “Do you understand?”

The Courier narrowed his eyes and worked his bottom lip red between his teeth. For less than a moment, Joshua flicked his eyes to the Courier’s mouth. A jagged grin spread across the Courier’s face.

“Yeah, okay,” he said slowly.

Without a doubt, Joshua knew the Courier would not obey.

Still, he lifted his hand from the Courier’s throat. Immediately, the Courier shot up to bite him, only for Joshua to slam him back down before he could even make contact. The Courier’s growl of frustration came much louder as he struggled under Joshua, entire body pressed against him. 

This time, Joshua covered the Courier’s mouth with his hand, gripping the lower half of his face hard to keep his head in place. The Courier’s eyes flashed in anger, but he ceased with his efforts to break from Joshua’s hold.

“Do you understand?”

The Courier made no attempt or gesture or reply. He only glared harder.

Joshua rubbed his thigh between the Courier’s legs and leaned his head down, brushing against the Courier’s cheek. The Courier whined under his breath.

“Do you understand?” Joshua spoke softly.

The Courier jerked his head in short nod.

“Good,” Joshua praised him as he slowly withdrew his hand.

The Courier sighed in exasperation and then glared. “Let me up.”

Releasing him, Joshua raised himself and leaned back on his heels. Impassively, he looked down at the Courier, watching him as he wriggled out from under Joshua. Shoving himself up, he leaned back on his hands and eyed Joshua.

“No biting,” the Courier confirmed. As if a great inconvenience to him, the Courier pushed himself to his knees and inched closer to Joshua.

Falling back to sit on the ground, Joshua allowed the Courier to straddle him. He raised his knees to bring the Courier closer. Even on his lap, the Courier did not sit much taller than him. Whatever pain the action brought was worth the Courier against him.

It was worth the Courier’s sharp intake of breath as his cock pressed against Joshua’s abdomen. It was worth it to watch the intense focus on the Courier’s face as he pulled Joshua’s vest off his shoulder and then to tug at Joshua’s shirt. He resisted letting go, when Joshua pushed his hands away to remove the Courier’s jacket. Once the Courier realized what he was doing, he immediately when about assisting him, flinging it aside and then grabbing his shirt by the back of his collar to pull it over his head.

Where as all of Joshua’s skin was a twisted mess of scar, the Courier’s chest only showed five of significance, all varying greatly. Again, Joshua touched where Daniel stitched the Courier back together the night Joshua found him feverish in the Virgin River. Joshua could easily deduce the cause of the largest. The burn mark stretch over his right side, wrapping around to his back and up his shoulder. A slice from the base of his sternum to a bit below healed neat and clean, as if surgical, similar to the one that ran over the full length of his spine. Another, right beside his hip Joshua recognized as a bullet hole.

Joshua remember them from when he assisted Daniel. The thick darkly discolored one at the joint where his arm met his torso was new. Joshua gripped the Courier’s shoulder, tracing it with his thumb.

He didn’t ask. He never asked. Where the Courier went when he left, what he did. For as talkative as the Courier was, he didn’t mention much about it, not to Joshua. Joshua knew nothing of his life outside of Zion aside from what he learned from Follows-Chalk or the other Dead Horses the Courier chattered to. A strange apprehension struck in Joshua’s chest, not for the first time.

Discontent with Joshua’s unhurried pace, the Courier groaned in exasperation and leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Joshua and leaning his weight against him. Dipping his head, he nuzzled the side of Joshua’s neck and rolled his hips against him. “Let’s goooo,” he whined.

“Moroni,” Joshua murmured.

The Courier jerked back, eyes narrowed. “Don’t say my name. I hate my name.”

“It is the name of the angel who directed Joseph Smith to the golden plates inscribed with the Book of Mormon.”

The Courier tipped his head in consideration and then raised his chin. “I don’t like it. It’s spelled like moron.”

Quietly, Joshua laughed. The Courier lurched forward, shoving Joshua down and going for his throat without hesitation. Again, Joshua grabbed the Courier by his hair and twisted hard enough to hurt. Although his grip was strong enough to drag the Courier back, he didn’t seem deterred by the pain. 

Joshua threw him down to his back and then rolled on top of him. His left hand returned to press against the Courier’s throat, under his jaw to hold him down, while the other moved between them. The Courier’s fingers wrapped around Joshua’s forearm, but when he realized what Joshua was doing, he didn’t attempt to free himself. His hands tightened around Joshua’s arm, digging to the bandages, pressing into his flesh. Joshua didn’t flinch.

With nimble fingers, Joshua unbuttoned and then unzipped the Courier’s pants. Almost predictably, the Courier went without underwear. He paused when the Courier’s movements under him became more vigorous, only to realize he was kicking off his perpetually unlaced boots.

“Come on,” he panted, hips making tiny thrusts upwards, as if he couldn’t resist, “come on, touch me.”

Who was Joshua to deny him?

Joshua loosened his hold on the his jaw, concerned about the Courier hurting himself, and then dipped his other hand under the fabric. The Courier responded instantly at contact, making a noise too quiet to be a yelp, but too high in pitch to be a moan. Almost as if in pain. But the Courier only rolled his hips into Joshua’s touch, the little sound repeating with every brush of Joshua’s fingers against his dick.

The Courier meant it when he said he wanted Joshua so much.

Pulling Joshua’s hand from his throat and bringing it to his face, the Courier nuzzled into his palm. “Please,” he whined between pants.

Joshua wrapped his fingers around the Courier’s cock and the Courier released a moan that shot straight to his dick. Firming his hold, Joshua began working him. When the Courier reached for him, without thinking, Joshua snatched his hand by the wrist and pinned it to the ground once more. The Courier’s other hand reached behind Joshua to clutch the back of his shirt and attempted to drag him down, but fumbling with his task as Joshua stroked him faster.

Bandages wet with pre-cum, already ruined, Joshua swiped his thumb over the tip of the Courier’s dick. Crying out, the Courier arched up, tightening his grip on Joshua’s shirt and burying his face in his neck. He swiped again and that was all it took for the Courier to cum, hard and messy, right as he bit into Joshua’s throat.

Joshua tore himself upright and away, ripping the Courier off and slamming him to the ground. Hand coated with the Courier’s cum, he clenched his fingers around the Courier’s throat. White splattered over his chest, the Courier laughed mad and breathless, blood on his teeth. Tipping his head back, he panted and then ran his tongue over his bottom lip and swallowed.

“Come on,” the Courier rasped, pressure still on his windpipe. Smug smile in place and eyes alight as they locked with his, the Courier tugged at the waist of Joshua’s pants. “Cum on me. I know you want to. Come on.”

Carefully, Joshua lightened his hold on the Courier. Gaze firmly on Joshua, the Courier waited. Lifting his hand, Joshua brought his fingers to the Courier’s mouth, brushing the tips over his lips. At the slight touch, the Courier opened his mouth and licked. Joshua pushed two of his fingers between the Courier’s lips, and splayed them, forcing his mouth open wider only to yank back right before the Courier bit at him. The Courier laughed again even as Joshua struck him hard enough to sting, though not damage.

“You never learn.”

The Courier grinned. “Nope.”

Slapping the Courier’s hands out of the way, Joshua opened his jeans and freed his cock. Spit and cum soaking through his bandages, Joshua took himself in hand. The Courier’s dark eyes, burning with something close to mania, locked on Joshua. As if unable to go against Joshua’s will, his intent, the Courier dropped his hands to his sides. Smile fading, his breathing stuttered. He bit his lip, as if he wanted Joshua to cum just as bad.

With his free hand, Joshua skimmed his fingers down the side of the Courier’s neck. Under him, the Courier shuddered. One stroke, another, and Joshua tensed before his orgasm ripped through him, spilling over the Courier, splattering up his chest and to his throat.

Breaking eye contact, the Courier tipped his head back and made a moan of satisfaction. He rolled his hips once under Joshua. Glancing down, Joshua found the Courier’s dick beginning to stiffen before his even softened.

When Joshua looked back to his face the Courier was furrowing his brow in concentration and biting his lip. Then he sighed. “Okay so I took a lot of Jet before this, so can we, uh, ya know. do it again?” Eyes drifting up to meet Joshua’s, a cocky smile spread across his face. “If you let me suck you off, I bet I can get you to cum too. I promise not to bite this time. For real.”

_If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove unrighteousness far from your tent (Job 22:23)_

Underneath him the Courier waited for his word, running hot and vibrating with want. Joshua knew every verse in the Holy Book. He knew of the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness should one turn from their wicked ways with contrition.

Joshua leaned back to rest his weight on his heels, sliding his hand against the back of the Courier’s neck to pull him up as well. The Courier went along eagerly, tilting his head back to look up at Joshua with pure happiness.

“Show me if your mouth can finally be of use, Courier.”

The Courier laughed in delight.

_If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. (Psalm 7:12-13)_


End file.
